EU ministers publish findings on how to improve criminal justice in cyberspace.

The justice and home affairs council has published its recommendations, and demanded that the European Commission take action so that “judicial authorities have effective tools to investigate and prosecute criminal acts related to cyberspace.”

They pointed out that several countries are already engaged in trans-border access to data beyond the scope of the Budapest Convention on an unclear legal basis, and said that mutual legal assistance (MLA) proceedings must be streamlined so that law enforcement authorities can secure and obtain electronic evidence more quickly and effectively.

Ministers said it would be necessary to cooperate with relevant third countries and private parties including providers of services, acknowledging that the current multi-jurisdictional shambles has a negative impact for industry, too.

One example is the ongoing Microsoft warrant case, wherein a US judge has ordered the tech giant to hand over e-mails stored in an Irish database that are relevant to criminal proceedings. US authorities could have used a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT) to secure the evidence with the assistance of Irish police, but chose instead to ignore that nicety.

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“The commission is requested, to develop a common framework for cooperation with service providers for the purpose of obtaining specific categories of data, in particular subscriber data, when allowed by third countries legislation, or any other comparable solution that allows for a quick lawful disclosure of such data,” the ministers said on Thursday.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the business software alliance (BSA), and Digital Europe—all of which count Microsoft as a member—welcomed efforts to “solve legal conflicts arising from the patchwork of national criminal and privacy laws.”

“Unilateral action by individual governments can place companies operating in several countries in perilous legal situations,” the three organisations said in a joint statement.

Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Amazon, eBay, and Paypal are among members of the lobby groups, along with several telcos.

“We do caution however against any moves to determine jurisdiction for a member state to address requests directly to the local office of a company, legally established in another member state, simply because it has a presence in that member state,” they added.

Facebook regularly defends privacy cases in European countries, arguing that only Ireland has jurisdiction over it because that's where its European headquarters are based.

The groups asked member states in the 28-state bloc not to undermine encryption, and to “ensure that individuals and enterprises can reap the greatest benefits of the digital economy”—in other words, “allow us to make money.”

In a more concrete move, the justice ministers demanded that the commission set up a secure online portal to track requests and responses concerning electronic evidence and the corresponding procedure by December 2017.

It's one of the measures that can be implemented right away, others need to be more deeply considered, however. Ministers say they want to work out what are the possible grounds for enforcement authorities to undertake an investigative measure in cyberspace, and also whether different treatment should be applied to different categories of data in criminal proceedings—for example, between real-time and stored data.